We develop real-time proxies of retail corporate sales from multiple sources, including approximately 50 million mobile devices. These measures contain information from both the earnings quarter (within quarter) and the period between that quarter's end and the earnings announcement date (post quarter). Our within-quarter measure is powerful in explaining quarterly sales growth, revenue surprises, and earnings surprises, generating average excess returns at announcement of 3.4%. However, surprisingly, our post-quarter measure is related negatively to announcement returns and positively to post-announcement returns. When post-quarter private information is directionally strong, managers, at announcement, provide guidance and use language that points statistically in the opposite direction. This effect is more pronounced when, post-announcement, management insiders trade. We conclude managers do not fully disclose their private information and instead message to shareholders and analysts something of opposite sign. The data suggest they may be motivated in part by subsequent personal stock-trading opportunities.

UAL is a large air transportation company with roots that go back to the 1920s. As a legacy carrier, going back to before the 1978 deregulation of air transportation markets, United Airlines is burdened with cost structures that make it difficult to compete with newer competitors. In addition, UAL has the burden of $7.6 billion in unfunded pension obligations and $2 billion in unfunded retiree health obligations. In June 2004, UAL is still operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which began December 2002. It has needed extensions of the exclusivity period from the bankruptcy court. UAL's plan of reorganization is predicated on receiving $1.8 billion in loan guarantees from the Air Transport Stabilization Board (ATSB). But its request for loan guarantees from the ATSB was recently rejected. The company must decide what to do next and how to emerge from bankruptcy.